Economic mobility varies dramatically across the US. This column introduces a new interactive mapping tool that traces the roots of outcomes such as poverty and incarceration back to the neighbourhoods in which children grew up. Among the insights the data reveal are that children who grow up a few miles apart in families with comparable incomes have very different life outcomes, and that moving in early childhood to a neighbourhood with better outcomes can increase a child’s income by several thousands of dollars later in life.

Do good-looking people earn more, how much more and why? Is the effect the same for men and women? Does buying clothing and beauty treatments raise earnings power? Daniel Hamermesh of the University of Texas at Austin talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about his research programme on the impact of people's physical appearance on their pay and other life outcomes. The interview was recorded at the American Economic Association meetings in New Orleans in January 2008.